Following the release of the 2021 film, it ended on February 19, 2021 after five seasons and seven years on air, though a follow up series using the same animation, Tom and Jerry in New York, was announced within the same year.
The Tom and Jerry Direct-to-Video Film Series would begin adapting the art style introduced with this show starting with 2022's Tom and Jerry: Cowboy Up!
Not to be confused with the 1975 series, The Tom and Jerry Show.
Tropes
- Abusive Parents: How does Tom's mother respond when she thinks he ate one pie? Kicking him out.
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Toodles Galore and her two baby sisters wear bows on their heads, their mom wears a hat and a pearl necklace, Tyke the puppy wears a collar, and Marvin the Fat Cat wears a fez.
- Accordion Man: Meathead becomes one courtesy of a Spike beatdown.
- Adaptational Badass:
- In the original theatrical shorts, when it comes to Spike, Tom would rather use backhanded tactics to deal with him due to the difference in power dominance. In this show, however, Tom has become less likely to deal with Spike's stuff and is more likely to fight and deal with him head-on. However, this may be because of Adaptation Relationship Overhaul. On occasion, Tom ends up getting the better of Spike by the end of an episode and is more likely to best Jerry than before. He's also more competent and stronger than Butch this time around who was previously a rival that often got the better of him in the original shorts.
- Jerry also counts. He's certainly much stronger than he was in the original shorts as he doesn't need a magic potion or rage induced adrenaline to carry around Tom with relative ease and move heavy objects like a fridge.
- Adaptational Jerkass:
- Spike in the original shorts mostly only attacked Tom when either Tom provoked it, he was hurting Jerry, Spike was a guard dog guarding a place, or Spike thought Tom did something but it was actually Jerry but he didn't know that. In this show (mostly starting season 2 onwards), he acts more like a mean, aggressive bully towards Tom and even Jerry at times, attacking them frequently even unprovoked, like in "Dental Case", "Tic Tac Do'h" and "Baby Blues". He is also shown to have more of an ego towards himself and dogs, like in "Picture Perfect", "Anger Mismanagement", and in the aforementioned "Tic Tac Do'h" and "Baby Blues". He is not always like this though and can still be likable (like in "Spike Gets Skooled").
- Jerry and Nibbles sometimes antagonize Spike and Tyke intentionally this time around. Examples of this include "Slinging in the Rain" and "Someone’s in the Kitchen with Mynah".
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Spike has become less abrasive than in the original cartoons and more friendly towards Tom and Jerry. This doesn't stop him from beating them up every now and then, though.
- Adaptational Intelligence:
- Spike in the original shorts seemed blissfully unaware of when Jerry would take advantage of him to defeat Tom. In this show however, Spike often finds out if Jerry uses him to mess with his rival and is more aware of Jerry's role in disturbing him and Tyke. This often results in him brutalizing both Tom and Jerry or Spike teaming up with Tom to turn on Jerry if he knows Jerry is completely in the wrong.
- Mostly downplayed with Jerry. Due to Spike being made aware of Jerry's role is his and Tyke's harassment, Jerry is shown having to rely much more on his wits to avoid Tom, as he can no longer rely on Spike as a guaranteed source of protection.
- Adaptational Wimp:
- Butch the cat in the original shorts (and most other adaptations he's in) frequently defeats Tom in many of their fights and competitions. Here, he hardly manages to compete with Tom and is constantly beaten up by him, Jerry, and Spike. Butch now has to rely more on underhanded tactics to best Tom similar to the latter's ordeals with Spike in the original shorts. He does seem to get better luck in later seasons however.
- Spike, somewhat as he sometimes ends up losing to Tom. Granted, this could be due to the latter experiencing a case of Adaptational Badass.
- Alternate Continuity: Of a sort. There are a number of different settings a short can be in, identified by their title cards and swapping in and out over the seasons:
- The standard suburban home setting where Tom is owned by Rick and Ginger.
A Noir setting where Tom is owned by a detective and teams up with Jerry after hours as the Cat and Mouse Detectives.
A laboratory setting where Jerry, alongside a rat and a hamster, live as lab animals while Tom is an alley cat constantly trying to break in.
A forest setting where Tom and Jerry are familiars to a pair of witches named Beatie and Hildie.
A vaguely Victoria era setting where Tom works as a butler in a fancy mansion.
A farm setting where Tom is a barn cat working for his owner Maude.
As a frame story, a German family of mice tell fairy tales with a German twist starring Tom Katzen and occasionally his owners Heinrick and Yinjer.
- The standard suburban home setting where Tom is owned by Rick and Ginger.
- Anachronism Stew: One of the turn-of-the-century shorts has Tom driving a new invention... an automobile. However, the car looks like a 1920s-era model, although at least it is ignited by crank.
- Art Evolution: Season 2 looks far better than season 1, thanks to animator Rob Fendler
. The series' director was reportedly not a fan of the first season's limited art style, so they made major tweaks to have them closer resemble the MGM shorts. - The Artifact: The series retains the classic gasp, gulp, and screaming sound effects from the original shorts for the duo, even though they stick out like a sore thumb compared to the more modern noises of the show.
- Art Shift: To the HD Adobe Flash style.
- Bears Are Bad News: The bear in "Tom's In-Tents Adventure" takes over Spike's usual job.
- Bicep Kiss: Apparently Played for Laughs; Jerry proudly kisses his suddenly-beefy bicep upon learning Rick and Ginger were going to replace Tom, which he knew was his doing. It's later revealed he was wrong, however.
- Big Ball of Violence: Seen occasionally, such as when Tom and Spike get into a fight, but other characters would get into one when fighting too.
- Big Eater: Jerry, who is able to eat something over twice his size. Though this seems inconsistent between shorts, as sometimes Jerry's stomach matches that of a real mouse. One time he had trouble swallowing a noodle strand, and another he takes a long time to eat a single popcorn.
- Blackmail: An attempted example. Mugsy tries to blackmail Tom and Spike in "What a Pain"... only to get pummeled by the former.
- Blowing a Raspberry: In the first episode, for instance, Jerry mocks Tom via blowing several strawberries at him.
- Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: One gag in "Picture Imperfect" has Tuffy wear a cowboy hat, then a large fake mustache, then both at the same time.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Any shorts featuring a narrator are definitely this, as the Interactive Narrator is able to directly converse with the characters. In "Tom's In-Tents Adventure", Jerry gets so annoyed by the narrator that he punches the camera and cracks the lens.
- Breath Weapon: One episode has a baby dragon which can breathe fire.
- Buffoonish Tomcat: Meathead being an lucky, oblivious, naive, goofy but friendly simpleton who can be prone to Amusing Injuries like Tom and other cats.
- Bully Bulldog: Like the previous series, "Tom and Jerry Tales", Spike alternates between being this and the Only Sane Man in the room depending on the episode. Even on a good day, he can be quite thuggish and tough. This actually becomes a plot point in "Tic, Tyke, D'oh" when his brash and brutal demeanor rubs off on Tyke such that he becomes an arrogant Sore Loser and bad winner, forcing Spike to turn to the duo to teach him how to play fair.
- Burning with Anger: The titular Jerry has steam exit his ears in "Someone's in the Kitchen with Mynah" after Spike ticks him off.
- Butt-Monkey: A lot of the series' slapstick happens at Tom's expense, even when he's not being antagonistic.
- Butch also counts as most of his appearances in the show has him suffering in some compacity or has him getting the short end of the stick. Needless to say, things hardly go his way this time around.
- Call-Back:
- The episode "Superfied" appears to be this to the classic Tom & Jerry Short "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse", with Jerry gaining Super-Strength and beating up Tom. Unlike in that short, however, Tom gets the chance to return the favor.
- "Uncle Pecos Rides Again" features a brief flashback to Pecos Pest, complete with spliced-up unaltered footage from that 1955 short.
- The Cameo:
- Droopy, Butch the Dog, and the City and Country Wolves appear in "Wing Nuts".
- Droopy and Butch Dog appear again in "Double Dog Trouble," with Screwy Squirrel also making an appearance.
- Screwy Squirrel appears again in "Kid Stuff."
- Camera Abuse: In "Tom's In-Tents Adventure", Jerry gets annoyed by the Interactive Narrator and punches the camera, cracking it.
- Cartoon Throbbing: Downplayed in the first episode; when Jerry pokes Tom's finger with a needle, his finger starts throbbing.
- Cats Are Mean: Wilson as an orange-furred kitten who resembles Puff is an Ax-Crazy variant of this trope, but his old, grey-furred self that looks a bit like an elderly Tom averts this trope. And also Butch, on occasion, as well, though he often vacillates between being Tom's Friendly Rival, shifty con-artist, and out-and-out Jerkass.
- Chaste Toons: Tuffy is Jerry's nephew in this show. Averted with Spike, as he is Tyke's father.
- The Chew Toy: This is a slapstick cartoon so characters suffer for the audience's amusement. The titular Tom Cat is the most prominent example, though.
- Chirping Crickets: "One-Way Cricket" revolves around Tom accidentally letting a cricket into the house, forcing him and Jerry to pull an Enemy Mine to get it out.
- Chocolate of Romance: A wizard gives Hildie a box of chocolate-covered roaches in "Return to Sender".
- Chubby Mama, Skinny Papa: As revealed in "Un-Welcome Home", Tom's father is scrawny while his mother is plump.
- Composite Character: Tom's main love interest in this show, Toodles, looks and acts like Toots; his first love interest in the original shorts. Despite this her name in this show is "Toodles Galore", which is the name of Tom’s other love interest in the original shorts. Also, she allows for Tom and Butch to fight over her in many episodes like original Toodles as well.
- A minor example but Mytre from the episode "Chew Toy" greatly resembles and sounds like the Maiden (commonly known as Mammy Two-Shoes) from the original MGM series.
- Continuity Cavalcade: Suiting the first season finale, "Curse Case Scenario" uses a Mushroom Samba as a plot device to involve characters from all of the different settings crossing over.
- Cranial Eruption: Several times has Tom gotten big ol' lumps on his noodle.
- Crocodile Tears: A couple times in "Dinner is Swerved" does Tom pretend to cry, befitting for someone as underhanded as he is.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Heavily implied. An image used in a slideshow in "Top Cat" has Jerry, with Red Boxing Gloves, standing on top of three defeated-looking cats. One of them (i.e. Tom) was knocked out with it being clearly the other two (i.e. Meathead and Butch) were subjected to Amusing Injuries. However, Jerry himself looks unscathed.
- Cursed with Awesome: In an episode, Tom gets a magical portrait of himself, the portrait absorbs anything he eats, however he's more than complacent for it because it also absorbs any damage he takes.
- Christmas Episode: "Santa's Little Helpers"
- Deliberately Monochrome: The Film Noir shorts use the desaturation sepia variation.
- Didn't Think This Through: Twice in "Out with the Old".
- It never occurred to Jerry that his constant victories over Tom could eventually lead the owners to buy a new cat that has the experience to catch and kill him.
- Nor did it ever occurred to him that by gluing himself to Tom's hand to stop the above alleged event meant that he's left at the mercy of Tom's vengeful wrath.
- Dinner Deformation: In "Cattyshack", Tom launches a croquet ball at Jerry. After accidentally swallowing it, he takes that shape, and he returns to normal after spitting it out.
- Disguised in Drag: A comedic one in "Bird Flue" when Tom "disguises" himself as a female bird to try seducing a male bird.
- The Ditz: Also Meathead who is on the Dumb Is Good side of characters in the show with his name implying his unintelligence, and he is a lot more on the Kindhearted Simpleton side of cats compared to others like Tom and Butch.
- A Dog Named "Dog":
- Hamster the hamster in the "Lab Mice" shorts.
- Newt the newt in "The Witches" shorts.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The first season had a distinct outline-less look, and each episode consisted of Two Shorts that lasted 11 minutes each. From the second season onwards, the character designs were overhauled to have outlines and the episode structure was changed to Three Shorts that last 7 minutes each.
- In the season 1 episode "Cruisin' For a Bruisin'", Meathead is a very skilled mouse catcher and doesn't act like The Ditz or Dumb Is Good at all.
- Eats Babies: A bobcat in "Eagle Eye Jerry" was (apparently) planning on eating several newborn eagles.
- Elongating Arm Gag: The second episode has Tom extend his leg so he could use his foot to catch part of a Crystal Ball. He also later extends his arm so he could nab Jerry.
- The Edwardian Era: A few shorts are set in an stereotypical 1900s-era English mansion (as in Downton Abbey), where Tom works as a butler.
- Episode of the Dead: An Episode where was involved with 3 Zombie Cats called "Catching Some Z's".
- Era-Specific Personality: The show tends to more closely resemble Hanna Barbara's mid-late 50s shorts, not just in the more simplified artstyle but the premise (Lighter and Softer more cartoonish plots with a more indiscriminate sense of slapstick karma), and the supporting characters and the frequency they are used (Spike, Tyke and Quacker are regulars just as they were in that era, with Spike having his later Jimmy Durante characterization).
- Eye Poke: In "Dinner is Swerved", Jerry pokes Tom in the peeper.
- The Faceless: As per Hanna-Barbera era tradition, the faces of human characters generally aren't shown.
- Facepalm: Out of frustration, Jerry facepalms in "Holed-Up" and "Truffle Trouble". Tom also does the same in "Bird Flue".
- Force Feeding: To save his friend Napoleon from Tom in "Gravi-Tom [sic]", Jerry forces-feeds the latter a pot of super spicy chili.
- Fractured Fairy Tale: One of the recurring segments unique to season five is a German mouse telling versions of fairy tales featuring Tom and Jerry as the lead characters.
- Frame-Up: Several examples. For instance, Jerry once framed Butch for dropping a flower pot on Spike's head. Unlike some examples, however, he deserved it.
- Fur Is Clothing: The titular Jerry once rolled back some of his arm's fur like it was a sleeve.
- Gone Horribly Right: Tom, Jerry, Spike, and Tuffy's plan to make Butch stop being a Jerkass and instead a Nice Guy does work...only for him to end up being too nice.
- Guile Hero: Jerry is very manipulative.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Tuffy the grey mouse wears a diaper.
- Hammerspace: Tuffy's diaper serves as this, as he can hide all sorts of objects in there. Including a camera which is bigger than he is.
- Happy Dance: The living odor of a foul-smelling cheese does a victory dance with Jerry when they temporarily get the better of Tom.
- Hiccup Hijinks: "Hiccup And Away" has Tom getting hiccups, and so his witch owners send him off into a scary forest to help cure him. They send Jerry along for extra measure and give him a want to help scare him. In one scene, he makes a bunny huge, which eventually cures Tom when he sees him in a cave. Then the episode ends with Jerry getting hiccups.
- High-Pressure Emotion: Steam exits an angry Jerry's ears in "Someone's in the Kitchen with Mynah" when Spike laughed at him and said he looked clownish.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Doubles as a Karmic Injury of sorts; one time Rick tried using a Mouse Trap to catch Jerry. However, the mouse tricks him into getting his hand stuck in it.
- Humanoid Female Animal: Averted with Toodles Galore in this series, unlike her earlier incarnations in the classic Tom and Jerry cartoons and in Tom and Jerry Tales. She is no more anthropomorphic than Tom or Butch the male cats this time.
- Hypocritical Heartwarming: In "Kiss and Makeup", Jerry and Tuffy immediately see through Misty Makeup Mavin's ruse and try to save Tom from her. As Tuffy puts it:Tuffy: She's messing with him! She can't do that, that's our job!
- I Kiss Your Foot: The titular Tom kisses Ginger's shoe several times to kiss up to her in "Birds of a Feather". He also does the same to Cates' shoe in "The Royal Treatment".
- Implausible Boarding Skills: The titular Jerry surfs on a flashlight in "Pipeline".
- Improvised Lockpick: Tom does this a couple times, like in "What a Pain" when he unlocks a cage he and Spike were in via using one of his claws.
- Instant Humiliation Just Add Youtube: Not only did Rick in "Going, Going, Gone Viral" record Tom during a silly incident involving him chasing Jerry, but the former uploaded it onto "a few dozen of the most popular video sharing websites". And it quickly became a viral video! Tom also later tries to do the same to Jerry via making an embarrassing video of him to post online, which blows up in his face.
- Interactive Narrator:
- In the "Cat & Mouse Detective" shorts, the characters can hear him. In fact in one episode where they spy on Butch, the narrator's voice-over gives away their presence and Butch tells them not to bring the narrator along.
- This is also the case for the narrator in the "Tom's In-Tents Adventure". At one point, Jerry gets annoyed with him and punches the camera, cracking the screen.
- Jerkass: Tom's owner of Downtown Abbey Cates tends to be this. Not only will Cates display no care when Tom is clearly overworked, he'll also often belittle and speak harshly to Tom even when it wasn't his fault. "To Kick in the Butler" and "The Great Catsby" are very good examples of this.
- Jerkass Ball: Tyke was a brat who was an extremely poor loser who beat people up when they beat him solely in “Tic Tac Do’h”, despite the fact that in every other episode and the whole franchise he was simply a nice cute puppy.
- Karma Houdini: This tends to happen quite a bit in the show.
- Tom is one in the first short as he gets no karma for getting Spike into trouble and chasing Jerry during the short.
- Spike himself is one in "Pranks for Nothin" as he causes Tom and Jerry to fight each other over the mouse and cat thinking the other was going to prank them.
- Laughing Mad: Likely Played for Laughs when Tom breaks into unstable laughter towards the end of "Driven Crazy".
- Loud Gulp: After learning in "Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow" that Tom subjected him to A Taste Of His Own Medicine, Jerry gulps.
- Masculine Lines, Feminine Curves: Dee the female robot in the episode "Molecular Breakup" is curvier than Bot the male robot.
- Metronomic Man Mashing: Several times has Tom been slammed rhythmically back and forth, like by a crab in "Pipeline".
- Mouse Trap:
- Musical Episode: "It Ain't over Until the Cat Lady Sings".
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: "Road Trippin" features "The Doggy of Doom," Hannibal.
- Nice Mean And In Between: When Tom, Jerry and Spike are paired up, Jerry is the Nice one, Spike is the Mean one and Tom is the In-Between one.
- Noir Episode: One of the recurring settings features Tom and Jerry as the pets of a detective who run their own detective agency while their owner is away. The first season even gives these shorts a more desaturated noir color scheme.
- Non-Mammal Mammaries: "Molecular Break-up" featured Cozette, a French white cat with a bust size slightly bigger than normal.
- Only Sane Man: Keeping with his characterization from the later theatrical shorts, in times of crisis, Spike generally tries the hardest of the animals in Rick and Ginger's house to keep a level head and solve whatever problem is at hand. In episodes like "Cruising For A Bruising", "Pipeline" and "Hunger Strikes", he's the glue holding the household together.
- Ostrich Head Hiding: Sorta. In one episode, some ostriches are seen with their heads underground.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: In one episode, "Werewolf of Catsylvania", a puppy becomes a werewolf.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Although he isn't an angel himself, there's also Jerry tricking Rick into being Hoist by His Own Petard when the latter tried to kill him.
- Perfectly Cromulent Word: One episode gives us "chilax", which is a made-up word.
- Playing with Fire: A baby dragon in one episode can breathe fire.
- Psychotic Smirk: While concocting his plan to get revenge on Tom and Spike for laughing at him (with the former being responsible for why he got laughed at in the first place) in "Someone's in the Kitchen with Mynah", Jerry makes an evil-looking smirk.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In "Bringing Down the House", Rick wastes some time insulting Tom.Rick: [to Tom] What is wrong with you!? You nearly knocked me over! What do you do around here anyway, besides break stuff all day and cause trouble? You know you're the reason I'm leaving for vacation.
- Ring-Ring-CRUNCH!: After being woken up by an alarm clock in "Sleep Disorder", Butch smashes the object with a hammer.
- Quizzical Tilt: A confused Tom tilts his head to the side in "Franken Kitty", complete with him raising one of his eyebrows.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: Both Jerry and Tuffy (who are both guys) each squeak out screams in "What a Pain". Several other occasions also show the former has this scream elsewherre.
- Self-Harm: In one episode, Tom throws a pie in his own face in frustration. In "Birds of a Feather", he subjects himself to Metronomic Man Mashing and kicks himself out of Ginger and Rick's house.
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Whenever they're paired up for an episode, Tom is the Sensitive Guy to Spike's Manly Man.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The titular Jerry tries to get Captured on Purpose by Tom several times in "Out with the Old" to change Rick and Ginger's minds about having a more dangerous mouse-catcher replace him. However, while he eventually succeeded with the lattermost action, it was ultimately pointless; it was soon revealed afterwards that Rick and Ginger weren't considering replacing Tom, they were going to replace a cat-like doorstopper instead. Therefore, he got Captured on Purpose by his Arch-Enemy for nothing.
- Shaking the Rump: A Played for Laughs Type I in "Bird Flue". While Tom was pretending to be a female bird so a male bird would fall in love with him (It Makes Sense in Context), he twerks at him to try to make him enticed. It fails.
- Shout-Out:
- In "The Paper Airplane Chase," the music plays a familiar first few notes when Tom runs into a woodpecker.
- In one episode, Tom destroys a meteor with what is essentially an electrical powered kamehameha.
- Shown Their Work: In "See Ya Gator", the mother alligator is shown carrying her babies in her mouth like real-life crocodilian mothers. She and her babies also have the proper overbites of alligators (though their snouts are shaped more like those of crocodiles).
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Non-verbal equivalent. In one episode, Tom tries to threaten Jerry via giving him a Throat-Slitting Gesture. The latter clearly isn't intimidated and responds by having a robot defeat him.
- The Silent Bob: Tom and Jerry communicate almost entirely by hand gestures, charades, and facial expressions. Jerry also occasionally whistles to get others' attention.
- The Speechless: Unlike the original Tom and Jerry shorts, where they were just untalkative, but could still speak on occasion. Here, they're portrayed as actually being mute, and resort to nodding, shaking, or using charades in conversations. At least on-screen, as there would be many scenes like Tom calling Toodles on the phone or Jerry whispering in Tom’s ear where the scene will cut/not show the dialogue. Jerry also has a tendency to whistle. Though, in a couple of later season episodes, Tom had a couple of lines on-screen(he says, "Marco...," in one episode, and "Darn it" in Piñata Yadda Yadda after having his fit of rage censored).
- Squashed Flat: Characters getting squashed is a given as this is a slapstick cartoon. For instance, Jerry gets squashed by a custom headstone in "Return to Sender".
- Stealing the Credit: Although Jerry actually helped him, Tom takes the credit for cleaning a room in "Bird Flue".
- Stock Scream: A lot of both Tom's and Jerry's dialogue is made up of Bill Hanna's classic screams, gasps and laughs from the original cartoons (including the favorite "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!" and "AAAAAAAA-HOO-HOO-HOO-HOO!!!"). Sometimes, Jerry's nervous gulp from the original cartoons (also provided by Hanna) is also used. These sounds are occasionally digitally edited or pitched up for variety, especially beginning with season 2. Mice sounds are often used to represent Jerry in place of the violins and instruments used in the original shorts.
- Story Arc: The four shorts of episodes 18 and 19 have Rick and Ginger go on vacation to Hawaii with Tom and Spike... and Jerry and Tuffy. Hilarity Ensues as the couple is banned from airlines and kicked out of their hotel for trying to sneak pets in, followed by taking a cruise ship back to the mainland and having to drive a rickety car to Ginger's aunt's house.
- Super-Strength: Jerry definitely qualifies. The old cartoons had him struggle to carry a piece of cheese, but here he's able to effortlessly carry Tom, and even push a refrigerator.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Tom and Spike's owners in this show, Rick and Ginger, are very similar to their owners in the late 50's Tom and Jerry shorts, George and Joan. They act the same, with the husband not liking Tom and favoring Spike, while the wife favors Tom and doesn't like Spike as much. There a few differences though: for example, Rick has shown himself to be a Big Eater, and Ginger (particularly in season 1) treats Tom in a motherly fashion.
- Team Rocket Wins: In the very first episode, Tom succeeds in getting Spike out of the house.
- Tempting Fate: In "Top Cat", Butch harshly (albeit accurately) calls out Tom on his repeated failures to catch Jerry. Subsequently, the leader of United Mouse Catchers sticks up for him via pointing out "Jerry's no ordinary mouse" and that he also has to deal with Spike, who often beats him up. However, Butch brushes it off as "nothing". No prizes for guessing what happens to him when he has to catch Jerry and deal with Spike.
- Throat-Slitting Gesture: While glaring at Jerry in one episode, Tom runs his forefinger (or at least, the cat-equivalent of one) beside his neck while a rather "Kcch"-like sound plays.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Toodles Galore and her two baby sisters wear bows on their head, but her baby brother doesn't. Also, Toodles and her mom have eyelashes, as do almost all other female characters in the show. Subverted with Jerry, though, as he is male and has prominent eyelashes.
- Tin-Can Robot: Bot and Dee.
- Underestimating Badassery: An exterminator once dismissed two mice as merely being "wittle... cowards". Unfortunately for him, said mice were Jerry and Tuffy. Also, Rick once said this before being outsmarted by the former.Rick: Spike... now you watch and I'll show you that a little mouse brain is no match for my big head.
- Villainous Breakdown: In the first episode alone for example, Tom starts having a hissy fit after Jerry (who he wants to catch) gets stuck in a vase.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: While they still chase and hurt each other, Tom and Jerry are no longer mortal enemies and are often shown working together, especially the "Cat & Mouse Detective" shorts.
- Voice for the Voiceless: The narrator in the "Cat & Mouse Detective" shorts serves as this for Tom and Jerry. This is especially the case in the episode where they are detective rivals with Butch, who literally says that he couldn't believe they let the narrator do all the talking for them.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The episode "Little Quacker & Mr. Fuzzy Hide" is one to the Looney Tunes short "Hyde and Go Tweet", complete with Quacker's Hyde form being reminiscent of Tweety's.
- Youthful Freckles: "Baby Blues" has a baby with freckles.
